Rangers place Fritsche on waivers

The Rangers have confirmed that they placed Dan Fritsche on waivers. It’s unclear whether this is a precautionary move to clear up salary cap space for down the road, or a precursor to something else more imminent.

Either way, this is probably an overdue measure for Glen Sather. But as tempting as it would be to lump Fritsche in with the likes of Patrick Rissmiller as far as offseason blunders, bear in mind that Fritsche was part of the deal that brought Nikolai Zherdev here. And chances are the team couldn’t have landed one without taking on the other.

Update, 4:10 p.m.: Thanks to Zipay’s calculations, the Rangers would save roughly $362,800 toward the cap for the remainder of the season.

how f-ing stupid! thru 07-08 Fritsche has had a more productive NHL career than Dubi/Dawes/Calley/Orr/Voros/Korpi – I am not saying he’s better than all these guys – but also the injuries are coming, you’ll see – NYR has been the healthiest/luckiest team in NHL

I had high hopes for Fritsche. In the research I did on him before the season started, it seemed like he had a lot of good 2 way potential. Like Matt Cullen, but not as fast. For 800k I thought he was the right price as well.

Unfortunately, we have a lot of depth up the middle, and with Blair Betts’ considerable offensive improvement this season, there was simply no way Fritsche could crack the lineup on a regular basis.

Its a shame because hes a good player. You can’t even base his skills on what he showed during the season because he played once ever like 20 games. He’s a good player that I wish we could keep around, but we have 2 overpaid centers clogging and wasting our top 2 lines. Maybe if we tried to get rid of one (or both would be pretty great), we’d have room for him on the 3rd line.

One less 3rd liner on the team. He never had a place here, i thought he was gonna replace Betts as 4th line center before the season started, but sad thing is, Betts is 10X more valuable than him. Danny F just wasn’t a part of this team.

I like Voros, and i hope he turns his game around. Forget offensively, just hit, fight, stay out of the box, do what you’re supposed to do. But Pruchs has been doing good, he doesn’t deserve to get scratched yet again.

Hopefully we take over first place tonight, and hold it again for tomorrow. Tough couple of games coming up, i think after the Pens they got the B’s. Ugh, that’s something to look forward too. So i guess Pruchs will be gone again, cause the B’s are actually tough. Poor Pruchs.

(Jeffluke) “This is a hometown team sports blog ”
Jeff….I was born and raised in Saskatchewan , I went to the same elemetary school( King George) as Gordie Howe!! In Saskatchewan we sure have our tough guys that played in the NHL. Guys like Joey Kocur ,Wendel Clark , Dave Schultz , and Tiger Williams . Schenn played in my city along with Cam Ward.
I do not like any Canadian hockey teams at all!! Maybe if Saskatchewan had a team ,then id like at least one canadian team!!
No problems Jeff , I get what ya were saying and yeah it is hilarious!!

cwede, Dawes, Cally, Dubi, Voros, and Korp hadn’t even played two full seasons yet. Orr is a role player, so comparing him with Fritsche is a false comparison.

Also, Dawes and Dubinsky had better numbers last year than in any season of Fritsche’s career. Callahan has already tied Fritsche’s season high for goals (12) and still has about half a season to play. Dubinsky is 3 points from matching Fritsche’s career high in points, and Dawes is on pace to rival it as well. So really, those three deserve the spot over Fritsche.

As for Korpikoski, it’s his first season and they’re still trying to find a spot for him in the lineup. But I’d say his ceiling is much higher than Fritsche’s. In Fritsche’s first 19 NHL games all he could muster was one goal. Korpi has more than bested that in his 35 games this year.

And Voros, like I said above, at least he’s got size. Why he’s playing tonight over Prucha is beyond me, but he is the better depth guy to have around for the playoffs.

Only a savvy veteran GM like Sather would be able to trick teams into giving him 4th line players with million dollar salaries so he could put them on waivers mid-season. And then he cleverly signed overrated players to long-term contracts with no trade clauses — he is showing all the other GMs how to do business, that’s for sure.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Dan Fritsche has a better career than Brandon Dubinsky from here on out. Certainly better than Korpikoski. He’s got talent — particularly great speed and a nice shot — but Renney never seemed keen on having him around and never gave him a chance to fit. The majority of Ranger fans AND beatwriters are terribly uneducated when it comes to players outside our division. But a few years down the road when he’s an energetic and productive 15 goal 3rd liner, THEN the Larry Brookses of the world will complain about it.

“Only a savvy veteran GM like Sather would be able to trick teams into giving him 4th line players with million dollar salaries so he could put them on waivers mid-season.”

Dude, he traded Tyutin and Backman for Zherdev. That deal straight up is a steal. But he managed to also squeeze in a decent prospect (2nd round pick in 2003). It was also partly a salary dump by Columbus since they have financial concerns and have a self-imposed cap, and because Tyutin’s and Backman’s salaries were much higher than Zherdev’s alone.

I think he’s done some terrible moves as GM (some of which you touched on in the rest of your post), but that trade is definitely not one of them.

Mustache John wrote: “I wouldn’t be surprised if Dan Fritsche has a better career than Brandon Dubinsky from here on out. Certainly better than Korpikoski”

There is not a chance in hell that Fritsche has a better career than Dubinsky or Korpikoski. I like Fritsche, and think he is a solid kid, but he does not have nearly the skills that either of those two have. We will see how he fares in the AHL.

Fritsche’s development was stunted by being given too much too early in Columbus.

That said, I can still definitely see him having a better career than Korpikoski, who hasn’t shown me much this season beyond having good basic tools (skating, hands). He’s still got a long way to go before he starts putting any of it together, if he ever does.

As for Dubinsky, no way he has a better career than Dubinsky. Dubinsky is going to be a GREAT player in a couple of years. He, like a few other players on the team, just needs to learn to use his size a little more and he will start scoring a lot of goals. Also, not having Jagr and Straka on his line is definitely hurting his confidence, but he is still on pace to have more points than last season (albeit, less goals).

Here’s a question in terms of expectations. I know Renney haters will say that Renney should be fired immediately, but to those who disagree, what kind of performance would you need to see this season in order for him to be canned this year? Miss the playoffs? First round exit? Second round? Keep him no matter what?

And for the Renney haters who want him fired immediately, what kind of performance would you need to see for him to stay? Conference finals? Finals? Cup win? Fire him no matter what (which would be retarded if they win the cup BTW)?

I say he should get fired if they can’t get out of the 2nd round. Which is to say, I think that he should be fired, becuase there’s no way they’re getting out of the 2nd round this year.

Zherdev is potentially a great player, and hopefully he will stay with the Rangers, but with the salary cap problems Sather has created, Zherdev may very well prefer to go to a team that can afford to pay him. In that case, losing Tyutin for one year of Zherdev, would not be an impressive trade.

kc: they’re gonna resign Zherdev. Even if it means that we will lose other players to make the cap space (Prucha, Valli, Mara) they will resign Zherdev. He’s the only right wing worth a damn in the entire system.

theres nothing wrong with hard backcheck and strong puck play… but every player should have a role… especially players like Z… his role should be SCORING GOALS… not thinking about if he makes a move how fast he can get back to defense…

Unfortunately the handwriting is on the wall, when you look at the terrible game that Voros had against Anaheim (leading to a benching) and then have his coach come out and say that size is a component on why he is playing and he was doing what the coaches asked of him, Prucha won’t see the much more ice time as a Ranger. They began clearing space with the waiving of Fritsche and have decided to keep Voros and get rid of Prucha. I guess it makes sense, I don’t believe they want to resign him and he is a free agent after this year they will want to get something for him. It won’t be much (2 or 3rd rounder).

It is a shame that on a team that cannot score goals, have one of the worst pp, he couldn’t get a chance to help this team. It is mind boggling that a guy who scored more PP goals since the lockout than anyone on the team, has more career goals than Kovalev did after their first 3 years is sitting in the rafters.

We are big Prucha fans and don’t believe he was truly appreciated here in NY. His demise came when they signed Shanahan and he never recovered.

beer me , and doodie,
maybe it is time for the coach to play the players that make the most sense for his system. they have been trying to do it both ways (trap and up tempo)and have been inconsistant with it. so i suggest
naslund gomez, and zherdev
korpikoski, drury, and callahan
voros, dubinski, and frichte
sjosrom, betts and orr.
play the 1-4 trap it is what the coach does best, so use the guys that make sense for the system.

If we make it to the second round again this year and don’t go past I say it’s time for a new coach. Thanks for bringing us their 3 years in a row if it happens Renney, but learn how to bring us further? Even though i’ll admit the players really need to pick up their games and the coach whoever it is can only do so much.

SP: He still would have taken one of the contracts (presumably Drury since Gomez was supposed to be Nylander’s replacement).

Still, having Nylander with Jagr last year would have probably gotten Jags to that 84 point plateau, triggering his option year. It also would have really hurt the Caps: Imagine them without an extra 4 million to sign/resign their players.

Fritsche to waivers – good move althought I think he could (should) be traded for draft pick. Please stop crying and don’t even make me laugh, he is not and never gonna be better than Korpedo or Dubi. Fritsche didn’t show nothing that impressed me, absolutely nothing. So stop it. He’s 4th liner at best.

Doodie – They’re spending almost $5 million on Nylander anyway, haha, along with a no-movement clause! It would have been interesting to see if only Gomez came without Drury, since part of the reason they signed the first day was coming here together. Maybe with Gomez, Nylander, and Jagr locked in here, no Redden! Ah, the possiblities. Or, we could have had Nylander, Cullen, and Dubinsky down the middle, with real room for Anisimov after Cullen’s contract expired.

It’s surprising that the Rangers kept Fritsche around this long, given how little he played. I’m sure management assumed they would have had an injury or two by now that would have enabled Korpikoski, Prucha and Fritsche to get more playing time.

For a guy who is only 23 and been in the NHL since ’03-’04, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Fritsche develop into a legitimate 2nd or 3rd line player over time. Too bad there are just too many players ahead and behind him for that development to take place.

That said, the one time Fritsche was on between periods at the beginning of the season or when the Rangers were in Switzerland he said something like “I’m not going to change my game now that I’ve come to NY, I’m just going to keep on playing the same way I’ve always played.” I’m nitpicking but it struck me as a really bonehead comment for a guy who was a throw in on a trade and fighting for one of the last roster spots. Maybe that’s why he never got a real shot…